Current Faculty and Student Research at BHSU

Research teams are made up of undergraduate students who conduct their own studies, or participate in some aspect of faculty research or in each other's student research. Many of the undergraduates on these teams go on to graduate school in psychology.

Dr. Aris Karagiorgakis leads a team of student researchers on projects spanning a variety of fields and topics. Current research projects involve the meditative benefits of art on stress, the impact of acute stress on eyewitness memory, and assessing the influence of group size and gender of friends on ratings of attractiveness. Past research projects have included body image and socio-cultural pressure, gender label conformity, gender differences in compliance and personal space, involvement in school activities and contentment. Grant funded projects have included (a) assessing the effectiveness of a Life Skills program to change drug use attitudes among youth, (b) assessing the effectiveness of an After-School program to boost standardized D-Step scores in Math, Reading, and Science, and (c) measuring drug use and attitudes of alcohol, nicotine, and marijuana among community youth. Research projects have been presented at professional conferences such as the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), the Black Hills Research Symposium, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Aris was awarded the 2012-13 "Outstanding Research, Scholarship, and Creative Achievement Award" for the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences.

Dr. Nathan Deichert established the Health Psychology Laboratory at Black Hills State University in 2013. Research in his lab focuses on how various psychological and environmental factors, such as social support, influence people’s health and well-being. Currently, undergraduate researchers are assisting on several projects examining how the experience of gratitude relates to health outcomes. Upcoming experimental studies will examine the impact of gratitude induction on people’s physical and psychological responses to stress and failure. Dr. Deichert is always looking for motivated undergraduate students to join his lab. Research assistants in his lab gain valuable experience collecting and analyzing data and may also have opportunities to develop their own research projects as well as submit their work to various regional and national conferences. For more information about lab members and current projects, you can visit Dr. Deichert’s lab website at http://natedeichert.wix.com/positivehealth.

Dr. Eric ClaphamEric Clapham’s cognition lab is currently exploring a variety of nonconscious processing effects. Of particular interest is how nonconscious visual information affects perception and higher order cognition. To clarify, there is an overwhelming amount of visual information that enters the eyes and visual systems, too much to consciously attend to and process (change blindness is one example of this). If we process and become aware of only a small amount of all the visual information that we encounter the question then becomes, what happens to all the visual information that enters the visual system that we are unaware of? It turns out that the brain does process this information and can, in fact, use that information to influence later perception and decision making. We are currently exploring the boundaries of this type of processing attempting to identify exactly how nonconscious information processing contributes to our daily lives. Brain recordings (EEG) and behavioral data are the primary methodological approach used in the lab to gain a greater understanding of these nonconscious processing affects. Undergraduates are a vital resource in my lab aiding in all aspects of the research project, from design to data collection and analysis. http://ericclapham.wix.com/cognitionlab

Dr. Emilia BoeschenRecently, Dr. Boeschen took her research team of ten students to the Special Olympics World Winter Games in South Korea. While there, these students got to attend the Global Development Summit on Ending the Cycle of Poverty and Exclusion for People with Intellectual Disabilities and meet some powerful world leaders. Dr. Boeschen's research primarily involves gaining a better understanding of identifying and treating performance anxiety in special populations. Dr. Boeschen hopes to continue her consultation work with NCAA Division I athletes and within the next few years will engage in a private practice seeing clients on an individual basis.

Chermack, S.T., Stoltenberg, S.F., Fuller, B.E. & Blow, F.C. (2000). Gender differences in the development of substance-related problems: The impact of family history of alcoholism, family history of violence, and childhood conduct problems. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 61(6), 845-852.